Buckets and Broomsticks
by QueenOfTheDreamers87
Summary: "I asked you what you were doing, and you said you meant to make your very own ocean in your playroom. You were 'hauling in the stream,' you told me. Rather ambitious for a four-year-old." A one-shot to accompany All The Wrong Choices. This is just a drabble of two of the incidents Tom/Voldemort described to Georgie in his birthday letter to her from 1963.


**_But then I realised that you could have been a Slytherin - after all, you have always been ambitious. Perhaps you do not recall, but when you were very small I found you hauling a bucket of water up the stone staircase of the Regia. I asked you what you were doing, and you said you meant to make your very own ocean in your playroom. You were 'hauling in the stream,' you told me. Rather ambitious for a four-year-old._**

 ** _Then I thought that you would have made a splendid Gryffindor, for you are nothing if not brave. Just last year you were so determined to fly without a broom that you managed eight broken bones and an owl from Madam Jones on underage use of magic. Quite frankly, I was more concerned about your mother that day than I was about you._**

* * *

 _June 1956_

Lord Voldemort scowled as he stalked down the main corridor of the Regia's first floor. The meeting he had just left had been... unproductive. Most of the Ministry had already heeled to him, but there were a few stragglers in rather elevated positions. The fact that several heads of Ministry departments were not on his side irritated Voldemort, and he had ordered his insiders to place Imperius curses upon the lot of them. But today, Abraxas Malfoy had informed him that not all were being easily manipulated.

Voldemort had summarily dismissed those at the meeting and had contemplated downing a tumbler or two of whisky. Hermione had quietly urged him to simply go for a walk in the gardens and "get some air." So that was what he was doing. Getting air.

As he neared the main marble staircase down to the ground floor, he heard a strange persistent _clunk, clunk, clunk._ Curious, he peered around the corner at the marble stairs. A little smirk crossed his face as he realised the source of the clunking.

"Ugh! Too... heavy..." Georgiana was heaving herself up the stairs, and in her hands was the rope handle of a bucket. The bucket, Voldemort thought, had once been full of water. Now it was less than half-full, though it was plain where the rest of the water had gone. Behind Georgiana, each stair was marred with a rather large puddle of water, and there was a trail of it leading to the open front door.

"Georgie, what are you doing?" Voldemort fully rounded the corner and stifled a laugh as Georgiana raised her wide, dark eyes to him in terror. She squealed and the bucket went flying down the stairs behind her, thumping and sloshing as it emptied itself. Georgiana angrily swept her black curls from her face and scowled up at Voldemort.

"I want to play in the ocean," she huffed, crossing her arms over her knee-length blue linen dress. Voldemort chuckled, quite unable to stop himself. He descended the stairs to where Georgiana stood, lowered himself to sit, and pulled out his wand. He silently cleaned up all the spilled water as Georgiana watched, and then he Summoned the empty bucket back. He held it out to Georgie, and she took the rope handle, muttering her thanks.

"One bucket of water is hardly an ocean," Voldemort said with mock seriousness, and Georgiana pouted.

"Yes, I _know_ , Father," she said, and the bite in her tone made Voldemort want to laugh again. But then Georgiana continued, "I was hauling in the stream."

"Hauling in the stream." He nodded and furrowed his brows, feigning a deep level of thought as he said carefully, "If you want to play in water, Georgie, all you need to do is ask. Your mother and I might be able to make something work that's much safer, much more realistic -"

"I wanted to make my own ocean!" Georgie scowled, and Voldemort gave her a conciliatory nod.

"Very well, then," he said, clapping his hands on his knees. "You've got your bucket. Might I at least put a feather-light charm upon it so you can carry the water up the stairs?"

"I can do it! It... was especially heavy water, is all." Georgie pulled the bucket away as if to shield it from Voldemort's wand, and he licked his lips as he rose to his feet.

"I shall leave you to it, then!" he said, continuing down the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Georgiana demanded, padding down the stairs after him with the heavy bucket still in her hands.

"Oh. I'm just going to walk in the gardens," Voldemort said lightly, giving her a small smile.

"I want to come, too!" she cried, reaching to take his hand in hers. Voldemort nodded and led her out the front door. Somewhere along the way, the bucket was left behind, and Georgiana's attention turned to roses and honeybees and winding vines.

Abraxas' Malfoy's concerns about Imperiused Ministry employees... those vanished, too, somewhere between the white roses and the honeysuckle.

* * *

 _July 1962_

"Tom! Come quick! Georgie's hurt!"

Hermione burst into Voldemort's office so explosively that he instinctively reached for his wand and almost cursed her. But once he processed what she'd said - _Georgie's hurt_ \- Voldemort flung himself to his feet and followed her from the room. As they dashed down the corridor and the stairs and out the front door, Voldemort felt a terrible pang of fear. His daughter was something of a daredevil, and he wondered what she'd done this time. If it had Hermione this riled, it had to be serious.

Then he saw her, lying crumpled upon the grass, surrounded by several Healers. Bellatrix Black stood a distance away, looking rather unalarmed given the apparent seriousness of Georgiana's injuries. The red-haired Weasley boy was there, too, the one who had so often goaded Georgiana into risky behaviour.

"Step away at once," Voldemort barked at Bilius Weasley, and the boy hurled himself away from the cluster of kneeling people. The Healers, too, stepped aside, except for ancient Healer Percival, who was dragging his wand along Georgiana's limbs and muttering spells.

"What the devil happened?" Voldemort demanded sharply, staring down at Georgiana's unconscious form. His grip on the Elder Wand tightened as Georgiana twitched and moaned, her eyes wrenching more tightly shut in pain.

"M-My Lord, she... we were flying, you see, sir," Bilius Weasley admitted, gesturing toward a broom upon the grass. "She went too high, and... it's my fault, My Lord; I shouldn't have encouraged her -"

"No, undoubtedly not," Voldemort clipped, watching as Hermione knelt beside Georgiana. He could tell his daughter had suffered several broken bones, likely a head injury of some kind, and many scratches and bumps. Healer Percival finished his spellwork, and then glanced from Hermione to Voldemort.

"My Lady, My Lord," he said, his old voice creaking, "I think it best we move the Lady Georgiana to a quiet room so that she might finish healing. She will live, of course. A few broken bones, and she's been knocked from her senses. But the girl will be all right, in the end."

"Georgie, you silly girl. What on Earth were you thinking?" Hermione whispered, clutching Georgiana's bony hand to her lips and kissing gently. Voldemort felt an odd mix of relief and anger at the Healer's words.

He watched in silence as Healer Percival and Hermione rose, each pulling their wands from their robes. Voldemort would have liked to carry Georgiana up into the house, but he did not want to hurt her further. So he let Healer Percival and Hermione levitate Georgiana and guide her gently inside. Once they were gone, Voldemort turned his eyes to Bilius and Bellatrix.

"You were both flying, as well?" he asked with a sharp bite to his voice. Bellatrix chewed upon her fingernails and flushed white.

"I... I wasn't flying, My Lord," she insisted. "Just the Lady Georgiana."

" _Legilimens._ " Voldemort cracked into Bellatrix's mind and was surprised to sense some automatic defence from the ten-year-old girl. But she quickly let him in, and he watched what had happened.

' _No! My Lady! The Dark Lord will not be pleased -'_

 _'Oh, hush, Bella. I am perfectly capable of flying.' Georgiana rolled her eyes at Bellatrix Black as she climbed astride an old broomstick. She pushed her feet off the ground, and Bilius laughed and clapped his hands._

 _'Go on, Georgie!' he goaded, and Bellatrix opened her mouth once more to protest. But then Georgiana was gone, soaring up and away with alarming speed. She landed softly upon the ground after a time, and then Georgiana climbed off. She looked from Bellatrix to Bilius and stuck her tongue out triumphantly._

 _'Now I want to do it without a broom,' she declared, and there was a little verbal scuffle about underage use of magic. Bellatrix's mind revealed a deep stab of jealousy as Georgiana muttered a few spells and pushed herself off the ground again. She floated and then laughed as she pushed herself upward._

 _'Bloody hell, Georgie! Wandless magic to fly. They're going to adore you at Hogwarts!' Bilius chortled, and Bellatrix scowled as she watched Georgiana soar gleefully around. But then, all of a sudden, the magic keeping her aloft gave out, and Georgie was plummeting to the Earth._

Voldemort pulled gently from little Bellatrix's mind, and the girl flashed him an apologetic expression.

"I'm sorry, My Lord," she murmured. "I should have -"

"Neither of you is at fault," Voldemort said crisply, tugging at his robes to adjust them. He sniffed lightly and said, "When the Lady Georgiana awakens, I shall be having a rather firm conversation with her about flying. As for the both of you... do be careful not to goad her, will you?"

He nodded curtly and turned over his shoulder, stalking into the Regia.


End file.
